That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, Vol. 8
That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, Vol. 8
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E3-20200519-JV-NF-ORI
CONTENTS | TERRITORIAL CONTROL
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PROLOGUE
A STATUS REPORT
“You are quite a spiteful man, Granville. I came very close to dying, I’ll have
you know.”
“Don’t be absurd. You fled before you could even get involved, didn’t
you?”
“I had no choice. Did my protégé deliver the news to you?”
“More or less, yes…”
“That demon was more of a monster than I ever imagined. The Empire’s
regular forces would hardly stand a chance. We would need the most
powerful army I know, the Imperial Guard, to defeat him. But enough about
that…”
Damrada and Granville were seated facing each other, each sizing up their
partner as they calmly chatted. In Damrada’s eyes, their plan had failed.
Thus, he felt it prudent to keep his distance from the Rozzo family until the
heat died down a little. If their scheme had worked, that would have given
them an advantage in the negotiations, but if not, he was likely to face
demands he found singularly unreasonable. Right now, he simply wanted to
cut his losses and move on.
But things had changed. On his way to Tempest, he had received a
magical call, reporting the news to him:
“Hinata is defeated. She and the demon lord Rimuru have agreed to
terms.”
Damrada had pictured this happening. But it was still the worst possible
“…And that was how things worked out with the Five Elders,” Damrada
reported to the boy sitting comfortably in a chair.
“Ah. Well, I’m glad matters have been settled with the Rozzos the way
you wanted them to. Now we can continue to use them as a point of contact
for negotiation.”
Damrada was the height of arrogance while dealing with the Rozzos. With
this boy, he was far more self-deprecating. It was to be expected. After all,
this boy—broadly nodding his approval at Damrada’s report—was both his
master and the leader of the Cerberus group.
“Quite true. But curse those rats! Pushing a monster like that on me
without even informing me about it…”
“Ha-ha-ha! That must’ve been quite an adventure. But at least you were
able to step back at the right time.”
“Heh. Yes, that was quite a stroke of luck. His name was…Diablo, if I
recall. A fearsome demon, one who might even be the equal of Blanc over in
the Empire. Rimuru himself is far from the only threat.”
“Yeah… I got a feeling Rimuru’s gonna grow stronger before we can get
ourselves fully back in order.”
“I agree. That demon lord has the uncanniest luck working for him. He’s
assembled quite a number of magic-born, and he’s even tamed the Storm
Dragon himself…”
“To tell the truth, I think a frontal assault would be a pretty bad idea.”
“I…wouldn’t go so far as to call it unwinnable. But no, I doubt Cerberus
The boy closed his eyes, gleefully moving the mental chess pieces around
in his brain. Then he heard the tapping of footsteps. His lips curled into a
smile as he spoke to the woman behind him, a secretary.
“You were listening, weren’t you, Kazalim?”
“I sure was, Boss. Why are you intent on dismantling Orthrus now?”
This was Kazalim, a trusted confidant and adviser to the boy.
“It’s simple. I thought I’d let him play the good guy on this.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“Do I really need to say the other one? That slime controls the entire
Forest of Jura, from one end to the other. If we go monster hunting in there,
we’d get crushed. So why don’t we dissolve Orthrus now while it’d be to our
advantage?”
“Yeah… I suppose. We just need to protect our core assets, huh? Like a
lizard that’s lost its tail.”
“Right? So can I leave the arrangements to you?”
“‘Let him play the good guy’… Oh, him, you mean? You come up with
the most interesting ideas sometimes, Boss. All right. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Kazalim.”
“Of course. Also, not to change the subject, but can you call me Kagali?”
The boy turned toward Kazalim, eyebrows raised. “Oh, you’re finally
going through with it?”
“Uh-huh. With Clayman dead, it’s time to step up. Until I have my
revenge against Leon, I’m putting the demon lord Kazalim name on ice.”
Things became much, much harder after all that. Getting everything settled
was more exhausting for me than fighting Hinata—a fact I made sure
remained a closely guarded secret.
What had happened? Well…
.........
......
…
Luminus, the single god worshipped by the Western Holy Church, was
none other than the demon lord Valentine. Her real name was Luminus
Valentine all along. She had been using a trusted confidant as a stand-in,
giving him her name, Valentine, so he could fully play the part of demon lord
in her stead. That, of course, was all in the past, now that Veldora had so
breezily blown her cover at the last Walpurgis Council.
The Crusaders, the team of paladin knights led by Hinata, stood in
opposition to the demon lord Valentine, which earned the Empire the support
of the general public. The entire setup was wholly contrived, something
Hinata knew all along—but whatever rational sense the arrangement made,
why did she go along with it?
“It was out of my hands,” she said, sighing. “Lady Luminus defeated me
when I tried to put a stop to things myself. Not that she was much interested
in the people’s support in the first place…”
She must have sensed my skepticism. Reluctant or not, apparently Hinata
was incapable of defying Luminus’s will. She did, however, extract a
promise from her that no civilians would be harmed in the process. As long
No, Raphael? Then maybe she just has the uncanniest sixth sense ever.
That seemed to smooth things over with Luminus well enough. Veldora
was shouting things like “Wait! Does—does my opinion not matter at all?!”
as she dragged him away, but neither she nor I was paying attention.
“Time to let off all the steam I’ve been building up… Embracing Drain!!”
“Gaaagghghhh!!”
It looked like Luminus was giving Veldora a hug, but there was certainly
no sweet sentiment behind it. It was really more of a bear hug, despite the
height difference.
You’d think that wouldn’t be enough to hurt Veldora much, but…
“Now, it will be some time before the meal is ready, so why not take a bath
first to take the grime off your bodies? We have rooms prepared for all of
you, of course, so you may feel free to relax as well.”
The paladins didn’t seem to understand what any of that meant.
I knew the people of Englesia were in the habit of bathing regularly. I
think the words used were all familiar to them. Hinata’s team members were
using inns along the way, apparently, and they all definitely had baths.
Perhaps they never imagined monsters wanting a dip now and then, too.
Well, prepare to be amazed, guys! The baths we got here will beat
anything you’ll see in your capital, trust me. Really more of a hot spring, in
fact, and I’ve got everything from a large pool-like room to private open-air
baths. Just like a hot-spring-resort town back in Japan, I’ve got all kinds of
different types to try out. It makes for killer advertising, and besides, it just
feels good when you’re all tired out.
They’d also need some new clothes to change into, wouldn’t they? The
simple gear under their armor was battered and torn, a hopeless mess after all
the fighting they’d been through. A change of clothes should be good PR,
too, I thought. Maybe some of the hemp-based jinbei shirt-and-shorts outfits
we’d just developed? We had the more kimono-like yukata for the women,
too—in a pretty broad color selection, even.
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Haruna told me with a grin. “Lady Shuna is
The place settings were lined up in the shape of the letter C, with three seats
at the center—me in the middle, Veldora and Luminus on either side. It gave
me a view of everyone at the banquet, with the paladins and our city’s
officials facing each other along the arc. This had the nuance of an informal
gathering, so I wanted to be sure people could all see one another.
Soon, the paladins were ushered into the banquet hall. They had just come
out from the bath, wearing the yukata and jinbei prepared for them. It
must’ve been a novel experience, but they looked comfortable for the most
part. You’d be hard-pressed to find something even more relaxing to wear
around the house, after all—kind of like lounging around in sweats all day.
They all seemed a bit on edge as they were guided inside. The lack of
tables and chairs must have thrown them, not to mention the custom of taking
off their footwear before going up on the tatami floor. The goblinas guiding
them along were in their element, however, demonstrating some pretty
surprising elegance. Vester must’ve been teaching them well. I could tell
some of the paladins weren’t sure what to make of them.
Luminus sat down first, the picture of high society as she settled next to
me. Louis was next, a practical mirror image of the former demon lord Roy
and every bit as dignified as his papal rank suggested. Third was Hinata, who
That reply sounded a little cold to me, but it didn’t matter. Oh, man. I was
starting to feel…adventurous. Now would normally be when I began sporting
wood, but that thing was long gone. Ah well. A man never leaves his sense of
adventure behind! Good thing I don’t get nosebleeds in this body, either.
A yukata, though, huh? Wow. Talk about packing a punch. A woman,
fresh from the bath, in a yukata. There’s just no beating that. And if that
woman was as beautiful as Hinata, the fearsome synergy that results…
…Well, she got me. I gave in. Defeated. I’d forgive her for anything she’d
done. In fact, I already had.
But enough of this gloomy stuff. All this food we prepared wouldn’t be
nearly as good cold—and considering Veldora’s lack of a role so far, keeping
him waiting any longer would just piss him off and make my life a hassle.
He wasn’t supposed to require food at all, I didn’t think, but from the
moment of his resurrection, he had been demanding it for some reason. His
love for cakes and such was already common knowledge, but he whined at
A nice, cold mug, straight from the hot bath. No better moment in your
life. And I was prepared, of course—we had all the treasured liquor my
nation had to offer, and there would be no holding back. No mistake about it.
Wine was the staple drink in Englesia, I had learned. Beer existed, but it
just wasn’t very good. It lacked carbonation and the aroma from the bubbles,
and being served at room temperature did it no favors, either. My nation had
conquered all those problems—don’t let anyone tell you I didn’t have a
passion for food. After all this research, day and night, our selection of
offerings was now far more robust than it was when I first visited the
Dwarven Kingdom. Sheesh—it’s almost like I say something, and they
immediately begin development on it. Was this because I was a demon lord
now? Actually, I guess it was kind of always this way…
…Well, regardless, my beloved monsters were doing their very best for
me, and as a result, my diet was now no different from when I lived in Japan.
The food in Tempest is seriously good, trust me. I figured the paladins would
be blown away, and I was right.
We kicked things off by having a group of women, all well versed in
holding banquets like this, pour drinks for everyone. The first mouthful was a
surprise to them, I could tell, but the moment they tucked into their food, they
paused and looked at the others around them to gauge their responses. The
taste must have astonished them. I grinned to myself, relieved.
Tempura was the main dish, but we also offered seafood—some freshly
prepared sashimi. We had found something close to soybeans, so we even
had some ersatz soy sauce to go with it—another fruit of Shuna’s labor. It
wasn’t a perfect match flavor-wise, but you wouldn’t notice unless you knew
the real thing. To someone trying it for the first time, this was what it was
supposed to be. Soy sauce came in all kinds of varieties anyway, so maybe
there was something like this produced by some local outfit in Japan, for all I
knew. Either way, I was more than satisfied.
Ah, I see. Maybe eating this now, after exhausting his magic in that huge
fight, made it all the more effective.
The other paladins, seeing this, immediately clamored for tastes of their
own. Having a few pints in you could be a dangerous thing sometimes; none
were afraid of the side effects. So I agreed.
Hinata gave the blackspell rice a funny look, likely reacting the same way
I did at first. But without further complaint, she sipped from the bowl of
chazuke, consisting of the black rice with some tea poured on top of it. I also
offered it in rice-ball form for those who wanted something a little heartier.
Both selections were huge hits, and a second round was carried out to the
party in very short order. Considering that I busted out my personal stash of
white rice for this event, it was funny to see the blackspell rice be the toast of
the night instead—but hey, if you aren’t conditioned to be turned off by the
color like I was, it must’ve been much more acceptable.
So now I knew what this new breed of rice could do, and between that and
all the other food and drink, I thought we were making a pretty good
impression. I was starting to see monsters and paladins chatting with each
other, taking advantage of the opportunity presented to them. Shion was even
engaged in an impromptu arm-wrestling tournament with three of the
paladins—dominating them, by the looks of it, but her opponents were all
smiles regardless. I liked the trends I saw. Alcohol played no small role in it,
perhaps, but if this became the natural flow of things, it wouldn’t be long
before we’re all on friendly terms.
Good things to eat, enjoyable days to spend—that was my goal, and I
wasn’t afraid to strive for it. If I have any job here, I suppose, it’s to make
sure this sight doesn’t go extinct. It gave me new resolve.
Then:
“What are you doing, Rimuru?! Drink up, drink up! Let me fill your cup!”
“Yes, yes! You have the demon lord Luminus accompanying you! Let us
enjoy this evening as much as we can!”
Thanks for the feedback, man. Raphael sounded a bit peeved, but I was
sure I was imagining it. Nobody’s skills get mad at them.
I shook the mental cobwebs away. Today we had an important meeting to
conduct—one that could decide how Tempest and the Holy Empire of
Lubelius dealt with each other going forward.
I wanted to start with a brainstorm session to see what each side’s takes
were on this situation. Along those lines, I created a list of issues affecting all
of us and passed them out to everyone to kick things off. This was just to
ensure we were all on the same page; I didn’t want to turn this conference
into a blame game, so if we disagreed on how we saw matters, I wanted it
fixed as soon as possible, and so did Hinata.
Raphael sounded like it wanted to say something, but I’m sure I was just
imagining things. Maybe it was just envious of my genius, or maybe it
thought I’d stolen its thunder because I didn’t ask any questions of it.
“Do you think,” an exasperated Hinata asked, “the Seven Days thought I
was a thorn in their side because of that?”
“Sounds like it. They probably intended to help Clayman ascend, then
have you get killed fighting him. They could never have defeated you, after
all, so I don’t think they had much other choice.”
It wasn’t a totally far-out concept. Step one, have Clayman defeat Hinata.
Step two, either kill off Clayman somehow or operate him like a puppet. I
couldn’t say what they wanted to do with him, but Clayman’s faith in them
was genuine—if they could get Hinata out of the picture, Clayman would do
On the other hand, maybe someone was deftly scheming to frame Yuuki.
The Eastern merchants could pull that off well enough, I thought—they’d
proven more than capable of carrying out multiple operations remotely at the
same time. If the Clergy were the main bad guys, the merchants would have a
motive to take the heat off them a little. It made sense.
But:
“Yuuki, a suspect? Can’t say that’s out of the question, no.”
That wrapped up our recap of past events. We knew we had to investigate the
possibility of another mastermind out there, but that could wait for later.
Today, we were here to figure out how we needed to work together to bury
the hatchet for good.
It was at this moment that Shuna brought in coffee and snacks for us. It
seemed that scones and French fries were on today’s menu. I had to hand it to
her; she demonstrated impeccable timing. I immediately tackled my plate as
the paladins sat there figuring out what to do.
For our future interactions, it was agreed that Arnaud and Bacchus would
stay here in Tempest. They’d go back home to prepare first, then return with
a few civil bureaucrats in tow. I was planning to build a Luminist church in
town in the meantime for their use, and I didn’t see it taking any longer than a
couple weeks. Maybe we’d start to see some Luminists around here once we
were done.
I was honestly a little anxious about allowing full freedom of religion,
but…ahhh, I’m sure we’d figure it out. Monsters, frankly, are atheists. There
was no such thing as a single god that was widely recognized by everyone
across the world. My conventional wisdom from my own planet didn’t apply,
really. There was religion, yes, but it was usually more like paying your
respects to the local deity than anything very fervent—and these deities could
quite literally help you out if you prayed to them, because, like, they were
right there. The Dragon Faithful’s relationship with Milim is a prime
example.
Along those lines, Luminism was really nothing more than the biggest
player in an extremely crowded arena full of religions like that. The
Crusaders served as Luminus’s servants, protecting the weak and earning
That was the end of the tough stuff. We had a deal with Luminus, more or
less, and we had managed to get Lubelius to recognize us as a legitimate
nation. That was more than enough compensation—now, if we could just
keep interacting and getting along, it’d be perfect. I’d like to use our century-
long time limit to build a deeper understanding of each other, and that meant
we’d be interacting regularly with the Crusaders.
The first effort along those lines involved providing skills and tech to each
other. The battle earlier had smashed up a lot of the paladins’ weapons, so
they needed someone to repair them. We offered our skills in response, but
that was kind of a front—what we really wanted to do was see what their
weapons were capable of.
This allowed us access to one of those strange light-based suits of armor I
saw. As Raphael put it, it provided the wielder’s magical force to a spiritual
life-form, letting them manifest it into a physical object. The one gifted to us
had been overused and broken, so we traded it for a new Garm-produced
armor set. The paladins, still feeling a bit indebted to us, gladly let us have it
as part of their general apology, and while I expected Hinata to whine about
it, she was actually fine.
I decided to reciprocate by giving her a sword I had made.
…Whuh?!
M-man, does anything ever get by Raphael? Should I start calling it
Professor or what?
Oops, got on its bad side again. Better just give it my thanks and move on.
I really had no idea, though. This is a huge feat. I can’t get enough of that
guy. According to it, we could take the assessment from some inferior spirit
armor, then combine it with Hinata’s battle data to re-create Holy Spirit
Armor. This belonged to the holy element, but you could also tinker with the
fundamentals of it to turn it into a demonic piece.
Sorry, Hinata. I guess this Holy Spirit Armor’s a national secret, but a
quick bit of Analyze and Assess and it’s mine. I would need to think about
who to grant it to, though. It seemed kind of difficult to use. Now, though,
our battle gear would be more polished than ever before.
Between this, that, and the other thing, we were now even with each other. It
was evening, and with the day’s work behind us, I figured the paladins would
hit the trail soon, but I thought I’d at least be polite and offer them one more
meal.
“Hey, uh, it’s getting late, Hinata, so why don’t you and Luminus save
your departure for tomorrow?”
It was kind of silly. Luminus could go home with Spatial Motion anytime
she liked, and I’m sure Hinata had a Warp Portal set up somewhere in
Lubelius. The same was true of all the paladins, each one an A-grade fighter;
I’m sure the journey home was no great effort to them. I imagined they’d just
say “Sorry, but our work’s done here, nice knowing ya” and be on their way.
“Sorry, but—”
Yep. There it is.
“—if you insist on it, would you be willing to host us this evening?”
“Ah yes, I did like that hot spring of yours, and the food was simply
excellent. What fun will we have tonight?”
Huh? Huhhhh?
I suppose neither Hinata nor Luminus was in any hurry to go anywhere.
The paladins saw this, of course, and now they’d all need quarters for another
night, too. They were all smiles now, chatting over what could be on the
Wh-what?!
But it was already too late. Even worse, a “reset” wasn’t something you
could do all the time. Whether I wanted it or not, the poison was being
cleansed from my body. But booze isn’t poison! I thought to no avail. My
skills were just merciless.
Of course, I suppose this happened because I still had a pounding
headache from getting wildly drunk the day before. I cut a little too loose for
my own good, and that was the cause of it. Maybe I’d be more tight-lipped
toward Hinata if I wasn’t inebriated. Let’s just call it my just deserts and
move on.
I glanced at Hinata, just in time to see the jolly man next to her—Fritz,
was it?—steal a piece of top-grade beef from her plate. Looks like I’m not the
only guy in this room who played with alcohol a little too much.
“Now, now, what’s the big deal, Lady Hinata? That just shows how much
he trusts us! Oh hey, and if you aren’t eating that, I’ll take the rest!”
I think he was a top officer in this force. He certainly robbed Hinata’s
plate with lightning-fast dexterity, at least. Still, it must have taken a few
drinky-drinks to decide it was worth the risk.
The moment Fritz tossed the morsel into his mouth, I could see a vein
throb in the vicinity of Hinata’s temple. Her natural paleness made it all the
more visible, although it would’ve been impossible to miss no matter what
color her skin was.
“Fritz… Were you looking to die today?”
“Um…? Lady Hinata, you’re looking so…serious…”
Before long, and with next to no warning, Lubelius would give the
Dwarven Kingdom more than tacit approval and officially recognize the
nation as a land of humans it could potentially become allies with. They also
formally announced diplomatic relations with the Jura-Tempest Federation, a
nation of monsters—one that included a nonaggression pact, albeit one with a
time limit.
Now, in one fell swoop, both demi-humans and monsters had been
granted acceptance by human minds. It was time to explore how to build our
relations from there.
THE INVITEES
You could try hiding it all you wanted, but it was doomed to spread. In short
order, the rumors had reached the ears of leaders in the nations surrounding
the Forest of Jura—
The news came across several routes, delivered with careful precision,
ensuring it would reach the people it was intended for. It sounded so
eminently plausible, and of course, someone was behind its spreading—but
in another moment, the word had traveled so far that nobody would ever
know who.
No matter how secret the Crusaders’ invasion was, there was no way to
keep everyone in the dark forever. The reason was obvious: Tempest was
now the center of attention, and to the nations that had relations with it, they
had to be constantly vigilant about intelligence collection. The Crusaders’
deployment to Tempest was an open secret by this point, and that helped
make this new rumor seem even more believable. And this news was
interpreted in many different ways by many different people. Some feared the
demon lord Rimuru. Some angrily dismissed Hinata as a feckless fraud.
Others proceeded with caution, trying to decide how best to keep their
homelands safe.
But along with these flowing rumors, news was also coming from official
sources: Hinata, the Saint, and Rimuru, the demon lord, fought to a draw. The
result of this: a truce between Lubelius and the Jura-Tempest Federation,
None of these nations were about to accept the Council of the West’s
official announcement as the whole story. It would turn all common sense on
its head—and alter the fabric of the world itself. Every leader could smell it
in the air, and even if they lacked the whole story, they knew that the paladins
had suffered no casualties. That told them everything they needed to make a
decision.
And in the midst of all these wild, twisting motives, the Western Nations
were about to experience earth-shattering change.
Once things settled down a bit, one minister raised his hand.
“Your Majesty, a word?”
Gazel, preparing to leave the chamber, settled back in his seat and eyed
him.
“My liege, we have received a letter of invitation from Sir Rigurd. It
seems that Sir Rimuru is holding an event to officially mark his debut as
demon lord…and he seeks your attendance.”
“His debut? What could that be about?”
The minister was just as in the dark as Gazel. He blinked helplessly a
couple times, giving the other ministers enough time to raise yet another hue
and cry.
“Just a front, I’m sure. He no doubt bids you to be present so he can boast
to the world about how friendly we are with him.”
“I think that boat has long left port, good sir.”
“Ah! Wait, I have heard of this! Vester sent word that the monster nation
wishes to hold a grand festival to shore up its public image. He himself is
serving as an adviser to their administration, and they are preparing quite a
number of festivities for the occasion.”
Vaughn gauged the ministers, a thoughtful look in his eyes. “How
interesting! I do recall how wonderful their accommodations were. I was
allowed to bask in a hot spring, the food was excellent, and the conduct of
their servants impeccable. I knew Vester was training them, but plainly he
did his job well. And I can imagine how grandiose these ‘festivities’ might
be!”
He certainly sounded enthusiastic about it to Gazel. If the king turned
down the invite, Vaughn seemed likely to go in his stead.
Heh-heh-heh… That sly fox. I don’t know what’s motivating him, but he
just doesn’t know how to settle down and lie back, does he?
Gazel thought the demon lord’s aim was to gain the confidence of the
Now, the Dwarven Kingdom was 100 percent committed to the Tempest
invite, no matter how bewildered the ministers were by it, and with that, more
and more people in the hall began expressing their desire to join in.
Before long, Gazel had quite another problem: How am I ever going to
pare down the list of attendants joining me?
Two people were currently relaxing within these gardens. One was
Archduke Erald Grimwald, father of the adventurer Elen and one of the
nation’s most powerful officials. Facing him was the only person in Thalion
who wielded more authority than he—Emperor Elmesia El-Ru Thalion
herself.
On paper, the emperor was of ambiguous gender with beautiful features
that were only vaguely feminine—at least, that was the act she put on. In
truth, Elmesia was female through and through.
Her age, however, was unknown. She was among the most pure-blooded
of elves, meaning her elven qualities were stronger than most; she simply
didn’t age. That made her a living witness to history, and asking how many
years she had lived was a taboo. She looked elegant and noble, but she still
hadn’t lost her youth—in fact, her compact frame could cause one to mistake
her for a child. Her jade-green eyes were sharp and intelligent, and her
vibrant skin was like a fresh coating of snow. Her long silver hair shone as it
Now he saw what the empress was displeased about. She suspected that
Erald was hoarding all the sweets for himself—something he never would’ve
done, even if it was for his daughter’s sake.
“Nothing is ever too good for your daughter, after all…”
Now, at least, Erald’s name had been cleared. Instead, Elmesia was now
busy yelling at him about being totally oblivious to everything. Erald
dutifully accepted it.
“But, Your Excellency, how will we respond to Sir Rimuru?”
Elmesia gave her companion a satisfied grin. “Yes…well…”
She was acting all stately about it but didn’t seem too interested in giving
an answer. It irked Erald, but he wasn’t foolish enough to offer his own
words. As stated, the emperor visiting a foreign land was a national-level
project. If Erald brought up the idea first, he could see himself being shouted
down by criticism. People would get in his way; it’d turn into a big mess.
The Sorcerous Dynasty was established by the emperor Elmesia, its
sorcerous sovereign, and the thirteen royal families and other rulers under her
gave her their total loyalty. In general, each family was responsible for
governing their own fiefdoms, while the imperial court ran on the taxes they
provided. None of the royal families had their own standing armies; all of
He then dismissed all the other potential clients in his waiting room. In
this world, there were certain opportunities you couldn’t afford to miss. He
wasn’t foolish enough to misread the truly important things. He was a
capable merchant, and he understood the importance of finding diamonds in
the rough. But he also knew that some things were vital enough to abandon
everything else for.
And really, he couldn’t find it in himself to make Rimuru wait any longer.
Not because Rimuru was a preferred, profit-making customer of his. He knew
Rimuru helped him out in his time of greatest need, and he thus felt an
obligation to never betray him. To him, there was no such thing as a job more
important than dealing with Rimuru.
Has he come up with another scheme? he thought, growing excited as he
instructed his staff to handle all other pressing matters for him. But in just a
few moments, Mjöllmile’s frustrating days of listening to endless strings of
confident men and swindlers would come to an end, marking the start of a
new chapter in his life.
Next, we had Gabil. The dragonewt was working with Vester to build a
presentation devoted to the history of healing potions. They intended to keep
the core fundamentals of their research a trade secret, but they wanted to use
this pavilion to recruit new people interested in joining their team. They had
enough staff for now, they said, but just wanted to find potential hires with
the kind of passion they wanted.
Garm (eldest of the three dwarven brothers) and Kurobe planned to show
off their own wares at the event. Their pavilion would be alongside Gabil and
Vester’s, and already they were talking about competing to see who attracted
the larger crowds. Glad to see they were using this festival to have a little fun.
Kaijin was also set to return the night before the bash. I told Geld to take a
break during the event, so construction should be largely complete before
then. I informed my staff that our prisoners of war deserved a little
celebration as well; they’d be enjoying a feast over in their own facility. A
few people would have to work during the holiday, but we made sure to
accommodate their schedules so they could trade off days and not be stuck on
duty the whole time. The festival would continue for about a week, so I
wanted everyone to get in on the excitement.
Come to think of it, Shion was planning something, too. She was very
confident about it (“Hee-hee-hee, I hope you’re looking forward to it, Sir
Rimuru”), so I was half-excited, half–scared shitless. That…and Veldora was
alarming me with his suggestions again. Better do something about that
before he starts freaking people out…
Now he went to work, choosing who to bring and who to keep behind.
“If you ever have any problems,” he advised Bach, “tell me about them,
and I’ll help. But I believe in all of you. I know you’ll do just fine. Don’t
disappoint me!”
The group remaining in Blumund all nodded at him. Mjöllmile had
trained them thoroughly; none of them would fall out of line. Even if they
were dealing with high nobility, he was sure they’d never do anything ill-
The last of his affairs were now squared away, and it was time for
Mjöllmile to make the journey to Tempest with his retainers in tow.
That battle tournament was a pretty neat idea, too. Mjöllmile is such a
talented guy. I wasn’t sure how he would take it, but he demonstrated some
real enthusiasm as we brainstormed the plan. It barely took him a moment to
suggest running a tournament to attract visitors, then take advantage of the
crowds to sell potions and equipment. He’s got a forward-looking eye and a
knack for great ideas, that’s for sure.
Once I get back, I’ll need to get ourselves an arena to work with. Geld
was busy with urban-planning work over in the Beast Kingdom, and Mildo
was supporting him. Without our two main building specialists, I’d have to
oversee the operation. But that’s fine. After running all these construction
projects, one after the other, we were starting to build a well-trained staff,
enough so that I was mostly giving orders and not doing much else. I knew
about this craftsman named Gobkyuu, who worked under the tutelage of
Mildo, and he was involved with town architecture enough that I thought an
impressive circular arena would be in his wheelhouse.
The job would normally take a decade or so, I’d imagine, but if you run
the job with monster muscle, I thought we could cut that down a lot…like,
Well, that was easy. I had some paper on hand, so I drew up the plans,
adding my own style to it. This alone would normally take several months—
surveying the site, calculating soil strength, that kind of thing. You could
often spend a whole year on that kind of preliminary stuff. And here I was,
drawing up blueprints that’d normally take several days at a computer on our
equivalent of a cocktail napkin… Raphael’s support helped a lot even with
detailed work like this. It honestly felt unfair to me, but I had no plans to give
it up, so…
Now I had my plans. Next I’d have to discuss them with Gobkyuu— But
before that, while I was here in Blumund, I may as well stop at the Free
Guild. I could forward the plans over to Gobkyuu in the meantime; once I
was free, I could assemble a team of craftsmen on-site to get down to
business.
“Ranga, you there?”
“Here, my master!”
He popped his head out from my shadow. With things settled over in
Farmus, everyone except Diablo was back home, with Ranga lurking in my
shadow like it was his personal den. I gave him the arena blueprints I had just
whipped up.
“Take these to a craftsman in town named Gobkyuu. And can you tell him
we’ll meet up at the west gate once I’m free?”
“Very well. But are you not returning, Sir Rimuru?”
“No. I wanna see Fuze first, while I’m here.”
“Will you not need a bodyguard?”
He looked a bit nervous, tail down. But I wasn’t concerned. I am a demon
lord, and I had Absolute Defense activated. If I ran into an attack that could
We chatted for a while more over past events before I stood up, recalling
something.
“Anyway, I better get going soon, but I want you to take this.”
I removed an envelope from my pocket and handed it to Fuze. It
contained an invitation to the Founder’s Festival I was planning; we had
gotten so caught up in conversation I had almost forgot about it. This was
why I came here today, after all.
“What’s that?”
“Well, I’m gonna be holding my demon lord coronation soon, and I
figured it’d be a good opportunity to advertise my town to the world. We’re
calling it the Founder’s Festival, and the way I picture it, it’s gonna be a huge
blast. We’re sending invites to all the royalty and nobility in the region, and
I’d love for you to attend, too.”
“Huhhh?! Wait a minute, Sir Rimuru. What would inviting someone like
me accomplish—?”
“No, no, it’s no big deal! I have an invite here for the king of Blumund,
too. Can you make sure he gets it?”
“Well, couldn’t you give it to him directly—hmm? Maybe not, eh…?”
“Nah. I gave the dwarven king and Archduke Erald their invites
personally, but I don’t have many contacts in the other nations.” I smiled.
“I’ve met your king once, but I don’t think a demon lord would be invited to
his throne room, would he?”
“It’s distressing enough for a demon lord to be in Blumund at all.” Fuze
snickered back. “But thank you for this. I’ll be sure this reaches the king.”
My errand was now done, and I was about to depart but was stopped at
As I escaped from the Guild building, a man leaped out from behind a corner
I had now distributed all my invitations. Now we just had to prep for the
big day. It needed to be a festival like none before. As I thought over
everything we needed for it, I could already feel my heart racing.
THE PREPARATIONS
The small pixie bashed a fist against the small desk in front of her.
“This is exactly why I thought none of this was working!” she groused,
rubbing her hand. “I told you we needed to move outta here!!”
“Correct as always, Lady Ramiris,” Treyni agreed, watching her
affectionately. “Truly, a most brilliant idea!”
“Right? Isn’t it, though?”
Ramiris gave Treyni a satisfied nod.
Beretta was less than convinced. “One moment, please. Brilliant though
the idea may be, where do you intend to move to? And could you explain
why?”
Why do I have to do this? he thought. Treyni, his colleague, was a
thoughtful, detail-oriented, hardworking woman. She had a good reputation
among the spirits, allowing her to manage Ramiris’s labyrinth all by herself.
That was something Beretta couldn’t do, and there was no doubting her
usefulness to Ramiris. But there was an issue: Treyni, ever the loyal servant
to Ramiris, spoiled her far too much. She agreed with everything Ramiris
said, never doubting it for a moment. Someone needed to stop this before it
led to trouble.
First, I asked Gobkyuu’s craftsmen to dismantle the hut for me. Since we
already had the materials and everything, I decided to have it relocated for
use as a break room for the gate guards.
Next, it was time for a strategic conference. We filed into the usual
meeting hall, Gobkyuu in tow.
“Um, what is going to be the, er, happening to us?”
Ramiris’s anxiety was making her less and less coherent. Her eyes were
fixed on me now, gauging my temper.
“You don’t have to be so nervous. If you’re trying to be polite, you’re
failing miserably.”
I didn’t intend to do anything to her, no. If she was willing to accept my
offer, I was willing to overlook her excessively bold overtures. But before
that, we had to go over a few things.
“Gobkyuu, I was thinking we could build an emergency shelter space
under the arena. Is that possible?”
“I’m not sure it’d be safe to have one directly under the arena stage, no
matter how we try to work out the structural calculations. Any empty space
under the floor would cause a cave-in at the first shock wave. But if we move
this space a little, I think we can avoid that problem.”
“All right. I’d also like to have a door built down there.”
“…?!”
“A door, sir?”
“Right. Make it thick and heavy—and maybe put a bunch of carved stone
Calling Ramiris back from her mental head trip, I decided to have her help
rework our arena plans with Gobkyuu.
Accepting Ramiris’s offer, we decided to build the battle arena in the empty
space on the southeast side of town, a dungeon spread out beneath it.
Our theater, meanwhile, would be put up on the northwest side, near
where all our high-end spa facilities were. We had actually put up a gym, a
museum, and so forth among all the luxury lodging over there, so all we
really had to do was refurbish a previously built structure for the purpose.
So the dungeon and theater were in place, but we still had no arena. Geld
wasn’t around, but I’m sure I could rely on Gobkyuu and his crew. With
them, we’d doubtlessly have something in place by the Founder’s Festival—
“I’m not sure we can do this, Sir Rimuru.”
Oh, no? Yeah, guess not. I mean, any normal project like this would
require several years of work. Asking for a finished arena in a month or so
was kind of insane. Even with monster-level muscle on our side, I wasn’t so
sure we could do it, either.
“Yeah… All right. Let me lend a hand, then. I’ll help move dirt around
and process the metal infrastructure.”
I may not look it, but I did used to work for a general contractor. I didn’t
have that much on-the-field construction experience, but with what I learned
imitating the veterans, I wasn’t a total amateur. Besides, I had Raphael.
“Me too! Let me help!”
“In that case, allow me to help, too.”
“As you wish, Lady Ramiris.”
Let’s get right to work. I opened up my blueprints among the tents that
lined the area.
“Hmm… All right. I don’t see a problem with this.”
“Great. Better explain things to your beastmen, then.”
A lot of our nation’s beastmen were out working on remote projects, so I
decided to give Alvis and Sufia the full explanation for now. We would meet
together this evening.
“If that is what you seek, Sir Rimuru, it shall be done.”
“It sure will. We’ve got no right to complain!”
Once I explained my whole plan to them, they accepted with surprising
speed. They also stated that I wouldn’t need to explain it again to the other
beastmen.
“Um, really?”
“Sure, Sir Rimuru,” Sufia said. “You’ve given us all food to eat and a
place to stay. We’d all be glad to help out with building this arena or
whatever.”
“Besides,” Alvis added, “I hear that Sir Carillon will be involved in the
festival you’re holding. We all would be delighted to help you out. I am a tad
under the weather, so I will leave the rest to you, Sufia.”
“You got it!”
So Sufia would lead the beastmen on this job—and once that was decided,
things proceeded at blazing speed. One order from Sufia was all it took to get
the beastmen out of their tents. As they all lined up in formation, Ramiris
nimbly transported all the tents into her labyrinth. We now had a large patch
of empty land to work with.
Still a little wowed by this feat, I used Belzebuth, Lord of Gluttony, to
consume parts of the lot I didn’t need and pare it down to a square, flat
expanse. The steel framing came up soon after, and once it did, Gobkyuu and
his crew stacked up preprocessed stones to fill in the walls. Within the day,
we had walls so hardy that not a single hole could be found in any of them.
This gave us a sturdy-looking underground space with a large door in the
front of it. For someone from my “modern” era, the whole thing was wrapped
Exiting the labyrinth, I found the sun was already about to set. We must’ve
been talking for a while. Work had finished for the day, with crews cleaning
up and starting to cook dinner. I didn’t want to bother them, so I told
Gobkyuu and Sufia that I’d see them the next day and took off.
My next stop was Kurobe’s workshop so I could have him give me some
of the weapons and armor he couldn’t sell on the market—stuff that was
more to his personal tastes. The southwest side of town was currently an
industrial kind of area, and Kurobe’s place was there, along with workshops
owned by his apprentices. There was also dorm space for the newer pupils
without their own sites yet, along with lines of warehouses. There were inns
and restaurants for all these craftsmen and apprentices, of course, and overall
it was a fairly lively place.
Kurobe’s workshop was dead in the middle of it, and when I popped in,
he warmly greeted me, showing me to his storage building after wrapping up
dinner.
“Right here, Sir Rimuru. The stuff I have locked up in this warehouse is
all pretty unique—not the kinda thing anyone can handle easily, you know.
Are you all right with that?”
I had my seed items, but it was too early to focus on the Dungeon; that could
wait until it was done. For now, I wanted to wrap up talks with the one
person we needed for the final touches, the whole cornerstone of this scheme
—Veldora.
I found him relaxing in my little house a bit removed from town, a nice
little Asian-style teahouse. There’s actually a secret to this building—but I’ll
go into that later. Veldora was treating the place like he owned it or
something, which I didn’t mind that much, but…come on, man.
“Yo, Veldora. Can you do me a favor?”
“Mm? What? I am busy.”
Yeah, busy reading manga, maybe.
But what did he think? Veldora stood up, placing his manga in a pocket,
then extended a hand toward me, offering to shake.
“I like it. I like this very much, Rimuru. We will have adventurers
dispatch these ‘units,’ so they can stand before me, and I can deliver them
divine justice. They may try to run from me, of course, but I will never allow
them to. Perhaps I could bellow something akin to Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You
cannot escape me! Didn’t you know? There is no fleeing the Storm Dragon! I
always wanted to try saying that, and now I’ve got the chance, don’t I? Ahhh,
I cannot wait to begin!”
“Um, yes…”
His imagination was already running wild. I nodded back at him, but now
I worried that I’d egged him on a little too much. Is this gonna be okay? Like,
there’s really no way someone’ll reach Floor 100, right? I was a little
concerned about that, but I needed to push this plan forward.
“…Well, you’re the only person I could ask to do this. Are you in?”
“Of course. Rimuru, you’ve done well to reach out to me. Truly, it is a
task only I am capable of.”
He gave me a firm nod. I’m so glad he’s really that stupid. His
cooperation, and his reaction, were even better than I thought possible.
After that, I asked her about her progress. For now, she had expanded the
labyrinth down to Floor 15; at the current pace, she’d reach one hundred
several days later. I could decorate the interior along the way, so there was no
need to hurry her further.
“The subsequent floors will formulate themselves at this point,” she said.
“I’ve got nothing to do right now. Would you like to mess around with the
floors that are done?”
Apparently, the floor-making work would proceed on its own, as long as
Ramiris had remaining magic strength.
“All right, how about we set up Veldora’s room first?”
The domain of Veldora would be on the bottommost floor. I wanted to get
it all set up for him, if only so I could kick him out of my place pronto. For
now, that floor was still an empty space—no walls, no hallways, no stairs;
just a door in the middle of nothing.
“Wow. Literally starting from zero, huh?”
“This is my room, Rimuru? Because it reminds me of my time being
sealed away…”
Veldora wasn’t a fan. I saw his point. I’d feel kind of bad for him like this.
“Not to worry, Master!” Ramiris smiled at Veldora. “I can add stairs and
other things easily enough, just by thinking about it.”
“All right,” I said, “how about we all use Thought Communication to
figure out what we want this place to look like?”
We connected our minds together, and I showed them what I was
currently picturing.
“Oooh! Yes, yes! Quite fine, Rimuru! I knew you were better than that. I
suppose I am in good hands after all!”
One week later—the pace had dropped a bit toward the end—the labyrinth
was complete down to the hundredth floor. The interior, as I directed, was
made out of blocks whose structure could be altered freely, allowing us to
switch the paths around once every few days. This way, even if anyone
memorized the way down, they’d have to start all over next time. I’m talking
truly demonic difficulty here. Selling maps would be sacrilege, I thought. I
wanted this to be a true gauntlet, and this way, it’d be a new quest every time
—always fresh, retaining its difficulty, never getting boring.
As a kind of fail-safe, I did provide “save points” every tenth floor. It
turns out that Spatial Motion was possible in Ramiris’s labyrinths, under
certain conditions. This wasn’t affected by the local magicules, amazingly. It
made it possible to do things like transport food in and out—super-useful—
and it also worked on people, letting them freely travel back to these preset
locations. In other words, save points, through and through. Reach one, and
you get to start from there next time.
It works on your fellow party members, too; you could cheat a little and
bring someone below where they’ve been before. There was some debate
about that quirk, but I decided to go with it, see how people used (or abused)
the feature, and adjust as needed. Besides, even if you cheat your way down a
few floors, you’ll still have to deal with the challenge waiting down there.
There’s a boss stationed at every level, guardians that work along the lines of
the local boss warlords dotted around the Forest of Jura. I was thinking of
making the ones located before save points particularly powerful; if you
wanna take those guys down, save points weren’t going to help you.
Basically, someone would need to be strong enough to reach a save point
So the basic framework of the Dungeon was complete. Not bad for a
It sure didn’t take its time providing that answer. No, only Ramiris could
do this, and really, I ought to thank her for camping out on my doorstep.
“Great job, Ramiris. Now we can finally move on to part two of the plan.”
She flitted her wings as she replied, “Hee-hee! Of course! I’m a hard
worker when I wanna be, y’know!”
I turned to Veldora. “Well, sorry this took so long, but I think it’s time for
you to let your aura out.”
“Ahhh, the time has come, has it? Kwah-ha-ha-ha! I am ready!”
Yes, the moment was here.
The Dungeon had ducts and stairways connecting all one hundred floors
to one another. How did they keep things ventilated all the way to the
bottom? With magic—and that’s the best answer you can get from me.
Maybe we didn’t need those ducts at all, but they were there to ensure
magicules would make their way to each floor. And that rush of magicules
would happen once Veldora came to that central chamber in Floor 100,
assumed his original form, and cut loose.
“All right. Here I go. Hraaahhhh!!”
I didn’t need the theatrical shouting, but I suppose he felt better that way.
Instantly, a spectacularly evil aura engulfed Ramiris and me. I had
enclosed us in an Absolute Defense barrier, just in case, but for a moment, it
felt like a bomb went off in front of us.
“Phew… Sh-sheesh, that was dangerous,” a shaky Ramiris said. “If you
didn’t protect me, I might’ve been blown right outta here…”
Yeah, that was stronger than I thought. The shock wave was packed with
an intense concentration of magicules, easily enough to kill a normal person.
“Kwaaaaahhhh-ha-ha-ha! Make way for Veldora!!”
The boss chamber—er, sorry, Veldora’s underground lair—was pretty
large, but with the Storm Dragon back to his normal size, it actually seemed a
tad cramped. I hadn’t seen him in dragon form in a while, and the sight was
Veldora spent the rest of the day releasing his magic and chilling dragon-
style in his lair, and the next day, I brought Beretta and Treyni with me.
“Ah, Rimuru,” he purred to me, “last night was the most enjoyable one for
me in ages.”
“Oh? Good. Keep releasing as much as you want from now on, okay? No
holding back. Just never do it outside of here, okay?”
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! Oh, I understand.”
Did he? I wasn’t sure, but I had to take him at his word.
Discussing matters like this would be awkward, so I had him go into
human form for a moment as I explained the current situation to Beretta and
Treyni. I wanted to get right to work, but before that, I needed to make one
final check with Beretta.
“Beretta, you swore to Guy that you’d serve Ramiris, correct? You still
feel the same way now?”
He gave me a surprised look. I wondered if, under the mask, his
expression actually changed a bit.
“…Sir Rimuru, I apologize if this is rude, but as I stated before, I wish to
serve both you and Lady Ramiris.”
“Yeah, I remember, but doesn’t that go against what you promised Guy?”
“…It does. I was alone at the time, and—”
I didn’t need to hear that. Raphael just doesn’t let up, huh? Who does it
think it is? Ugh. Maybe Raphael’s the real schemer here.
It sounded a bit sulky about that, but I wasn’t about to start caring.
“Excellent. From now on, Beretta, you will work as Ramiris’s servant!”
“And her servant I shall be, but I still remember the great debt I owe to
you, Sir Rimuru. If you seek anything from me at any time, please, just say
the word.”
“I will. Thanks.”
I then undid the master lock set in Beretta’s core, handing the role over to
Ramiris. With that, I could only take credit for creating him from now on. I’d
get to give him orders again if something happened to Ramiris, but otherwise,
Ramiris was his sole master. That came as a relief. Now Guy had nothing to
whine at me about, and I could certainly trust Beretta to keep Ramiris safe.
Besides, this labyrinth was proving useful in many more ways than I
originally guessed. On the surface, it was advertising to get adventurers to
visit town. Underneath, it helped Veldora let off steam—and generate the
…and so forth. Combine them, and you could implement pretty much
anything imaginable.
“Nice work, Ramiris. You can craft these kinds of traps with your skill?”
“Sure can! As long as it’s within the labyrinth, I can set up nearly
anything!”
She was probably right. We were on the hundredth floor right now, but
the composition of gases in the air was little different from the surface.
Everything she accomplished with this reminded me once again of the power
of Mazecraft.
“By the way,” she asked, “what’s this closed room thing? Does that count
as a trap, really?”
I gave her an evil grin. “Well, in the air, there’s this gas called oxygen.
People, and most living things really, breathe this to bring it inside their
bodies, although sometimes you see exceptions like me or Veldora. If there’s
very little oxygen in the air, taking a single breath could asphyxiate you—and
Several days passed. Ramiris buzzed around, crafting all the traps we’d
need, and Beretta and Treyni installed them for us. Veldora and I, meanwhile,
“The draconic species of this world is nothing more than monsters created
from broken-down elements in the body of Veldanava—my elder brother, the
Star-King Dragon, and the most powerful of our kind,” Veldora began.
Basically, the difference between regular dragons and Veldora’s kind
involved the difference between a material life-form and a spiritual one.
Regular dragons, as monsters, have a physical presence in the world. They
were called dragons since they resembled the ones of myth and legend, but in
essence, they were closer to dinosaurs—big, mean lizards.
There were only four True Dragons in the history of the world, three of
which currently existed. The Star-King Dragon Veldanava—Veldora’s older
brother and Milim’s father—perished following certain unspecified events,
and he hadn’t shown any signs of reviving ever since. Dragons had eternal
life, so something really serious must’ve gone down with that guy…but that
was outside the scope of this conversation.
Veldanava was the origin of the monsters known as dragons—or to be
exact, the Spirit Dragon that he gave Milim as a pet. With what I heard from
Elen before, I suppose this Spirit Dragon died and subsequently became a
Chaos Dragon, and then the essence of its body spread far and wide. The
remnants of this essence were still birthing Lesser Dragons to this day in
areas with high magicule concentrations; if you had enough bits from the
Spirit Dragon to work with, they could even create Arch Dragons.
The most powerful among these Arch Dragons were called Dragon Lords,
These four element-themed floors would serve as the last challenge before
Not long after, Milim set off to capture the dragons, the latest members of
Ramiris’s rapidly expanding band of underlings.
A few days after Milim’s sudden visit, I had the traps set up across all the
floors. The only thing left to do was wait for Milim to come back with those
dragons.
“Man. Beretta and Treyni, you guys did a hell of a job.”
“Oh, no,” Beretta said, taking a step back and being modest as usual.
“This is all for you and Lady Ramiris.”
“Exactly,” said a beaming Treyni. “It is a joy to work for the sake of my
master.”
It was time to put the treasure chests in place and see how the labyrinth
was shaping up.
From Floor 1 on down, we checked our work. That topmost floor was
kind of a demo of things to come. I made it so even beginners could proceed
without too much hassle; the chamber and its hallways were broad, wide, and
hard to get lost in.
Still, eight hundred feet to a side was big. I worried that people would
spend all afternoon mapping out every nook and cranny, only to be rewarded
with nothing. That might cause people to start dissing the maze, but with all
the weak monsters prowling around, I figured there’d be enough excitement
Understood. Even with his aura hidden, monsters can still detect
the presence of the subject Veldora. Few would want to approach him.
Oh. I see.
“I guess monsters born from the magicules you released can pick up on
his presence. They’re too scared to go near him.”
“What?! So that’s why!” said Veldora, convinced. “No wonder I never
saw many in my presence inside the cave I was sealed in.”
I think it’s more like the weaker monsters literally couldn’t take the heat
Finally, we wrapped up our inspection of the first ten floors. “Well, now
what? Should we set up someplace on this floor where you can sell the stuff
you found or put it in storage for safekeeping?”
“Oh? Do we really need that? Because then we wouldn’t be able to sell
Sorry? I didn’t hear that. Raphael sounded a bit exasperated with me, but
I’m sure, of course, that I was just imagining it.
I’d learn not much later that I definitely wasn’t imagining it. Between
working out monster placement and boss setups, I suddenly realized that the
labyrinth was now full of monsters. Tons of them.
“Wh-what in the…?!”
There was still plenty left to do, but I decided to leave the rest to Veldora
and Ramiris, who were now even further motivated. Milim was kind enough
to fetch those dragons she offered to bring in, and we released them on the
appropriate floors, adjusting the atmospheric magicule count as needed. The
dragons helped cull the excessive numbers of monsters being generated, too.
We still only had our bosses worked out down to Floor 30, but that would do
for now.
The coliseum up top was still under construction, but the framework was
getting completed at speeds I couldn’t believe. It should be done in time for
the Founder’s Festival, once the snow thawed. The labyrinth below,
meanwhile, was turning into a more splendid attraction than I had guessed.
You needed to buy a Resurrection Bracelet to enter, but once you got one, I
was sure you’d be addicted. Hopefully it would remain one of our city’s main
draws as long as I hoped.
There were still a lot of ideas left to implement, but for now, this was fine.
I flashed an evil grin at the others, sharing a nod with them. We had our
labyrinth all prepped and ready.
Before long, our town started to see some new faces. The snow was
melting away, and once it did, we began to see visitors from all over traveling
to the Forest of Jura.
The Founder’s Festival was near.
THE AUDIENCES
A few days passed. While I was scanning the buzzing city streets, I
spotted Mjöllmile and his entourage heading this way. That was quicker than
I had expected. He must’ve packed up and come over in a hurry.
“Sir Rimuru! I do apologize we didn’t make it here sooner. I’m ready to
begin at once!”
“Ah, Mjöllmile, thanks so much for coming! Let me guide you over to
your home here.”
I took him over to a residence we had only just recently built. I had asked
Rigurd to get it done for him in advance, advising him to make sure it was
move-in ready. I loved that guy. So well put together. Ask him to do
something, and he’ll never let you down. I also wanted Rigurd and Mjöllmile
to say hello to each other, although Mjöllmile already knew Rigurd from their
healing potion business. Leaving the guide goblins and Mjöllmile’s servants
to the house, I went with him over to Rigurd’s office.
“Excuse me, Rigurd.”
“Oh, Sir Rimuru! And Sir Mjöllmile as well. What brings you here
today?”
He must have been busy, but Rigurd warmly greeted us nonetheless.
“Ah, I’m sorry it’s been so long, Sir Rigurd! Your boss— Er, Sir Rimuru
here has always been kind to me in our business ventures, but today—”
Before I could explain matters, Mjöllmile skillfully took over the role. We
moved over to the parlor, quickly getting down to business—the state of
arena construction, the lodging on the southwest side, the stalls we’d build
around the arena site, and more. We also talked about the freshly built
That night:
“This is insanity… This must be insanity! This is far posher than even the
grandest lodging in Englesia!”
Mjöllmile began shouting the moment he entered his new residence. He
must have liked the place. I was happy.
“There is running water, magic-driven burners, baths, and these toilets.
Every advanced piece of equipment this town has to offer is available to us.”
The elated servant’s report almost made Mjöllmile faint on the spot.
“R-Rimuru… Er, Sir Rimuru? Are you sure all this luxury is suitable for
me?”
Hey, man, this all comes standard in Tempest.
Of course, given the servants he brought along, Mjöllmile was living in a
larger mansion, not your normal kind of place. I had taken note of his
residence in Blumund and made sure we had something similar for him here.
There were ten individual apartments, rooms with small kitchens and toilets.
These were linked by a large shared bath and a dining hall, allowing
Once I left the mansion, I looked at the night sky. The assorted
constellations up there were twinkling bright, although none looked like what
I saw on Earth.
I wondered about that attacker, though. Was it really Cazac behind that? I
doubted a nobleman on the level of a viscount had the resources to stage an
assassination attempt with multiple monsters. And B rankers were one thing,
but B-plus? It’d be impossible to tame one of those guys unless you were
some kind of tycoon from a wealthy nation…
…Wait a second. If you wanted to tame a B-plus monster, would money
be enough to achieve that?
Time sure flies sometimes, doesn’t it? The whole town was in a festive mood
…So. Here I was, in the audience chamber we set up, being enshrined on
my little platform, in full dress. As a slime. It made me feel like some kind of
table decoration, a conversation piece laid out on a divine altar.
I suggested just putting one of my Replications up there, but my team of
advisers just smiled and said no. They had a knack for working together
against me at times like this. My only guess was that they were using
This visitor kneeled before me, turning an eye toward the other monsters
seeking an audience. I knew this guy—it was Abil, Gabil’s father and chief of
the lizardmen. Seeing him reminded me of the good old days—or it would
have, if he didn’t look virtually like another person by now. He had
transformed into a square-jawed warrior in the prime of his life. Giving him a
name must’ve evolved him to this point—to a dragonewt, one far closer to
humanoid than before. Gabil sure didn’t change that much, but Soka had
gone almost entirely human, so maybe it depended on what the individual
wanted.
“It has been far too long since we last spoke, Sir Rimuru. It pleases me
greatly that you have risen to demon lord, er, the status of demon lord, and all
of us er, are…”
Abil was acting oddly stiff. He was probably more on the “worship” side
Next up were the assorted high orc tribal chiefs, each with a little
entourage along for the ride. They must’ve trusted me enough to not bring
guards in; the entourages were composed of children and grandchildren. With
their food situation much improved, life had plainly gotten a lot easier for
them. They were fathering children now, and these children were themselves
high orcs, which surprised and elated them so much that they wanted to show
them off to me.
Well, why wouldn’t they be high orcs? Apparently, that wasn’t as much of
a given as I thought. Normally, they’d just be regular orcs; the mutation into
high orc was seen as a one-and-done kind of thing, generation-wise. With
birth rates going down among them, they’d be able to devote more time and
effort into raising each one, I imagined. I wanted to be sure of that, so they’d
become the next generation of manpower for us. Children really are
Next came the final group of the day—the treants, the other major players
in the Forest of Jura Alliance after the lizardmen and the high orcs. Actually,
the only individuals who made an appearance were the dryads Traya and
Doreth, Treyni’s younger sisters. But hey, treants can’t move anyway. No
helping that. Besides, the dryads acted as the treants’ representatives, so no
issues there.
I had been visiting the treant colony on regular occasions; Zegion and
Apito had been keeping it well protected, and we were receiving regular
shipments of high-quality honey from them. Thus, the atmosphere at this
audience was pretty casual.
“Charmed to see you again, Sir Rimuru. Congratulations on being
appointed a demon lord.”
“We hope you will continue to provide us with your benevolent
protection.”
They both smiled at me without hesitation. That saved me a lot of trouble.
So we filled each other in on recent happenings. For now, nothing was
particularly amiss. The only real concern to report was the thinning out of
magicules around the Forest of Jura, which made transport a tad
inconvenient.
They both looked exactly like Treyni, and I could feel vast amounts of
magical force in them, but apparently they were still affected by the lower
magic concentrations around them. In fact, Doreth did look a little thinned
out to me.
“Hmm… I didn’t think that far. That’s probably the magic barriers along
the highways doing their work. Better think of something for that…”
This new floor we built would eventually blossom into a forested city of
My itinerary for the following day involved meeting with the relatively
stronger species, including the biggest factions in my recently conquered
territory. Guess most of ’em will be in the “observing” camp again, I
thought, only to notice a commotion in front of my audience chamber.
A couple of different factions were having a verbal argument. Shuna was
staring at them, scowling, while Shion’s eyes were flashing with barely
repressed rage. Hoo boy. Hopefully this all works out…
These were the bovoids and equinoids. They had each brought along
about a dozen warriors, currently attempting to intimidate one another. It
turns out they didn’t get along too well—in fact, they had been at war for
over a century. They were fighting to see who would get an audience with me
first. I guess they thought being granted my protection ahead of their rival
would give them a leg up, but I really didn’t want to get involved. It was all
just an annoyance to me.
The two races stood by the door, keeping each other at bay. The situation
looked ready to devolve into physical combat at any moment—and given
their positions high up the Forest of Jura food chain, they were both
intimidating presences.
A magic-born with bullhorns spoke to me first. “Ah, the demon lord! If
you want a stout ally in battle, turn to us first! Let the bovoids join your side,
and you’ll get to strut around the forest with authority! And once we wipe out
those wimpy equinoids once and for all, you won’t find any race in the forest
to defy us!”
He certainly was bold, making this proclamation to me without a hint of
fear, and he had the strength to back it up. He had more magical energy to
him than the ogres and lizardmen I first ran into, that’s for sure.
Conservatively, I’d say there were a few A rankers in the group. You’d need
that kind of force to wage a hundred-year war, and in terms of pure fighting
ability, they may have been the best the Forest of Jura had to offer.
That said, I didn’t want my town wrecked. I suggested that we all move
elsewhere, and surprisingly, the trio agreed to it and followed me, curiously
checking out their surroundings as I led them into our freshly built battle
arena.
“Whoa, lady,” earring guy said. “You got guts, I’ll admit that, but if you
wanna take back what you said, now’s the time.”
“Let me show you magicules aren’t the only deciding factor in a battle!”
she snorted back.
I remember a certain red-colored ogre saying something similar a while
back. But regardless, we now had an audience of rubberneckers here in this
arena, ready to watch Shion fight off these three would-be pretenders coming
for my throne.
Without even needing to take out her enhanced Goriki-maru sword, Shion
had beaten the crap out of those three guys. Clearly, she had grown stronger.
Smashing these opponents, all of whom equaled or beat her in magic force,
didn’t even quicken her breathing. And she took all three down at the same
time, no less.
“B-Benimaru?! Shion’s…?”
“Yes, this is quite a surprise. I see she went quite easy on them after all.”
That’s not what I’m talking about! This isn’t Milim there, on the arena
stage! Benimaru clearly had a different definition of “going easy” than me.
That wasn’t at all what I meant, but…ah well. No point wasting my breath.
Seriously, though, Shion’s amazing. No joke. She just proved that you can
easily overwhelm an opponent otherwise your equal through prudent use of
your magical force. Whipping Clayman must’ve helped her grow a lot.
Benimaru’s non-reaction to it indicated he was expecting this all along, too.
I didn’t like it much, but Shion was now as powerful as an ex–demon lord
—and by definition, Benimaru as well. Hell, maybe even Soei and Geld. Or
maybe I’m overthinking it? Watching Shion grow must be wrecking my mind
or something. Or not. Better stop thinking too much about it.
“I’m sorry, was that not enough?”
Shion must have been taking my disturbed look wrong, as she eyed the
three heaps sprawled on the ground.
“No, no, that’s fine!” I hurriedly shouted. That was more than enough,
yes. “And if you guys have had enough, then stop getting in our way! Also,
The audiences went smoothly after that. Rumors of Shion taking control of
Daggrull’s sons spread like wildfire, enough to make even the powerful
bovoids and equinoids lie low, so nobody was looking down on me now.
I was hoping things would end on a high note, but…
Soon after, an elder from the elven race and a few of his men arrived. I
say elder, but he looked like a regular young man to me. No women were
among them, which was kind of a shame, given how gorgeous lady elves tend
to be.
Elves, of course, had a reputation for living practically forever. Both they
and dwarves were originally spirits brought to physical life (or fallen from
higher planes of existence), who became fairies and were eventually granted
material bodies. Apparently, you could trace the genealogy of goblins back to
the fairies, too: Fairies bearing the earth element eventually became dwarves;
those with the water element became merfolk; fire became goblins; and wind
became elves. Their ancestors were the results of fairies intermingling with
creatures from other races long ago.
Apparently, goblins had little in the way of fairy blood left, which made
their lives comparatively short. Even ogres, the next evolution up from them,
only made it up to a hundred or so. When you got to ogre mage level, that
reenergized the power from your spiritual ancestors, giving you skills that
bordered on the divine.
But back to elves. Their lives were said to span between five and eight
hundred years. Even elves with human blood mixed in could make it up to
almost three hundred. This could vary a lot, though, since the more fairy
blood you had in you, the longer you tended to live. Elves grew into maturity
around the age of twenty, and beyond that, the passage of time simply did
nothing to them. Only when on death’s door did they suddenly begin to
The long, long audience period was finally in its last day. Once I was through
this, I’d kick off the Founder’s Festival in three days.
No problems of note occurred after the elven contingent. It was going
smooth as silk, and there were no major issues among the monsters staying in
town. The little scuffle with Daggrull’s kids was the talk of the town in pretty
short order, which probably kept anyone who wanted to show off their
Standing in front of this armored crew was a beautiful young woman. The
tengu were humanoids known for their almost comically long noses, but this
girl looked like any normal human. Tengu, bearing the same name as the
figures of Japanese mythology, were apparently a hybrid species between
angels and wolfmen—
Um, sure. Right. Honestly, I don’t really follow it all, but anyway, a
bunch of crazy-powerful gods decided to create a bunch of crazy-powerful
wolfmen, and then an angel incarnated themself in one, creating a new
sentient species. The single individual that led to this species was the tengu
elder—the mother of the girl before me. And since creating all these children
apparently weakened the elder to the point of powerlessness, this girl was
essentially the tengu leader.
This is why it’s more accurate to call this a summit. And not even that
fully described how important this meeting was.
.........
......
…
Benimaru had come to the tengu’s domain once. They had been kind to us
at times, permitting the migration of high orcs through their territory, but they
were also proud, and if I floated the idea of enforcing my rule over the
mountains to them, it’d almost certainly result in war.
I, of course, didn’t want that. I didn’t see any need to fight this race
revered as mountain gods. Benimaru understood that, so he was on strict
instructions to just get their permission to build a highway on their lands
between Tempest and Thalion.
“The negotiations went successfully,” Benimaru had said when he later
reported back. “Everything went well with them. Not even the tengu can
afford to ignore you, Sir Rimuru, so they mentioned plans to come see you
sometime.”
The news sounded good, but Benimaru looked exhausted.
“You sure there weren’t any problems?”
“No, not exactly, but…”
He was dodging the question. And Alvis, whom I sent along with him,
Benimaru had headed over to the tengu’s hidden homeland with Alvis and a
dozen or so members of Team Kurenai. The journey over went smoothly, but
in front of a cave near the peak of the Khusha Mountains, they were stopped
by a young tengu warrior, dressed in white with a katana on his belt. On his
back were two white wings, and he also bore a tail and doglike triangular
ears.
Based on the refinement of his posture, he was clearly trained in battle,
Benimaru thought. Speaking with him, they asked for permission to go
through the “barrier” placed within the cave. The warrior agreed but allowed
only Benimaru and Alvis to follow him inside.
On the other side, they found a flowery paradise. It was neither hot nor
cold, the temperature always pleasant—a beautiful land, befitting the
powerful race who called it home. In the courtyard they were taken to,
Benimaru was greeted by a beautiful woman—one who looked human,
unlike any of the other tengu. Her hair came down to her shoulders, pure
white at the roots and fading into a crimson red around her ears. Her small,
soft lips were the color of cherry blossoms, but her long, sharp eyes were the
eyes of a wolf, watching Benimaru like a beast sizing up its prey.
Benimaru realized he couldn’t let his guard down. The commanding
presence she had over the room was reminiscent of the demon lord Carillon
—or perhaps even stronger than that.
“My name is Benimaru. I come on behalf of the demon lord Rimuru.”
“Welcome, kind messenger. I am Momiji, daughter of the tengu elder.
What brings you to us? Are you aiming to take over this land?” the girl asked
with a beguiling smile.
Her words were poison-tipped. Benimaru could tell he wasn’t welcome at
In the end, it was agreed that he would bring the question of Momiji back
home to think over. This was all entirely Kaede’s idea, and she had no
interest in forcing anyone into it. It was something she thought it’d be nice to
see, and if it actually happened, why, all the better. As for the rest of
Tempest’s demands, she largely agreed—the tunnel through the mountain
was still an issue, but she gave them permission to construct the highway to
Thalion any way they pleased.
But their talks didn’t end there. Apart from potentially marrying Momiji
off to Benimaru, Kaede also expressed an interest in building a constructive
relationship between the demon lord Rimuru and the tengu race.
It may not have been obvious, but Kaede suffered from an illness. At
least, that was the backstory; the truth was a bit different. She did indeed lose
the majority of her remaining power bringing Momiji into the world. The
birth and the subsequent “naming” of the child took place fifteen years ago,
and it consumed nearly all the force of a woman once lauded as the goddess
of the mountains. Death would be coming for her sooner rather than later, and
that was why she wanted to find someone to back up and support her dear,
inexperienced daughter. Benimaru’s visit was a coincidence, but to Kaede, he
brought hope—a final hope, gifted to her by her former lover Hakuro.
And come back he did, the previous night, after his journey to Farmus.
The three of us held a little chat. I had no idea what the tengu would demand
from us or what would happen with them at all, so we decided to save their
audience for the final day. I was planning to call for Hakuro if he still wasn’t
around by then, but fortunately I didn’t need to. Not that his timeliness solved
a lot of problems, either.
Benimaru and Momiji marrying was strictly an issue between the two of
them. I didn’t mind if they said yes; it didn’t really seem to affect me at all,
but…
Benimaru just crossed his arms in silence. I’m sure he wanted to bury his
head in his hands, but I have to give him props for not doing it. Or maybe it’s
more like he was frozen in place, unable to move or speak. Unbeatable in
battle, maybe, but powerless against “threats” like these—we’d just
discovered an unexpected weak point of Benimaru’s.
Sorry, man. As someone without much experience in love—not zero
experience, but not much—I doubt there’s much I can do to help.
“Man, life’s sure hard when women are attracted to you, huh?” I tried.
“Sir Rimuru,” Gobta said reproachfully, “are you serious? Because I think
you face some of the same issues…”
Don’t be silly, Gobta. I’m genderless now, remember?
“Eh-heh-heh-heh-heh… I have no interest in silly romance. To me, Sir
Rimuru is everything.”
I didn’t ask you, Diablo. If you have no interest, then leave me alone,
okay?
But even as I thought this, I could hear my staff gossiping.
“Sir Benimaru is rather popular, is he not? I believe some of the people
under my sister Soka’s command had taken a liking to him, too, but
compared with Lady Alvis and Lady Momiji, I’m not sure I like their
chances.”
“You mean Toka, Gabil? And maybe Saika?”
“Right, right. They’ve already given up on you, Sir Soei, what with Soka
staking her claim already…”
Anyway…
Well, not that thinking about this issue would get us any closer to solving
it.
“What do you think about this, Benimaru?”
“Hmm… Personally speaking, I do feel this is all going too fast. However,
one thing I can say for sure is that one spouse is all I’d like to have.”
Yeah, fair enough. Being asked out of nowhere to marry would knock
anyone for a loop. I know it’d throw me off. The past is one thing, but we live
in an era where you’re free to love whoever you want. Besides:
“Besides, for higher-level magic-born like ourselves, siring a child is not a
simple task. Some people have many wives and they impregnate each, who
must compete with one another to give birth, but I have little interest in that
approach. I do not intend to keep any concubines.”
Momiji watched Benimaru starry-eyed as she spoke.
“So no harem, then?”
No harem, it sounded like—or no polygamy, to be exact. No real reason
to adopt that in Tempest, unless we were forced to because of a glut of
widows or something.
I was hoping that was the end of the topic, but it was really just the
beginning.
“All right. In that case, I accept Alvis’s challenge. I promise you, I will
earn the role of Benimaru’s wife with my own two hands!”
Momiji all but shouted this declaration out to the world. I wasn’t sure this
is how love worked, exactly, but Benimaru seemed to have given up and
didn’t comment on it.
“What do you think of that, Sir Rimuru?”
What do I think of it? All I can say at this point is—hey, whatever.
“Well, there’s no problem with it, is there? I don’t want any to-the-death
duel or whatever, but if it’s more like vying to woo him, sure, that’s fine. If
he’s not up for it, we’ll need to end it, but…”
As long as it didn’t venture into stalker territory, I was cool with it.
“Very well,” Shuna said with a smile. “In that case, do as you like.”
I had a bad feeling about that the moment she said it.
I should note, by the way, that the previously reserved and hesitant Alvis
got seriously aggressive from that day forward, attacking Benimaru from
every possible angle regardless of how it made her look. Momiji, of course,
followed her every step of the way, resisting her efforts. The other women
coveting Benimaru, of course, didn’t take this lying down and immediately
threw themselves into the fray. To say the least, things got intense.
It kicked off the start of a new tradition in Tempest—the idea that, if you
love someone, prove it to them with your own might. Love on the battlefield,
I suppose.
It was evening by the time we wrapped up our talks with the tengu on the
final day. After an earlyish dinner, we decided to hold our first administrative
meeting in a while.
Since we had all my officials here for a change, I figured it’d be a good
chance to brief each other on recent events. We also had a few visitors—
Veldora, Ramiris, and her servants Beretta and Treyni. Milim would be
“officially” coming to town three days from now, and I guess she was really
starting to feel the heat from Frey, so she decided to head back home in the
meantime. Smart girl. I don’t know how pissed off Frey was, but if Milim
stayed here for much longer, I bet the answer would be very, and I didn’t
want to be caught in the cross fire.
Plus, we had another new face:
“Now, before we begin this conference, there’s someone I’d like to
introduce to you all. This is Mjöllmile, or Mollie, and I am considering a
government post for him. He’s been intimately involved with arrangements
for the Founder’s Festival in three days, and if it turns out successful, I’d like
to name him chief of our financial affairs. I want all of you to treat him well.”
I had wanted to do this when everybody was around. Plus, I wanted
Mjöllmile to handle the final pre-festival briefing for me.
“Er, my name is Gard Mjöllmile. Sir Rimuru has been kind enough to
give me a crucial duty in the upcoming festivities, and frankly I’m rather
tense, but I hope I will earn good favor from all of you here today.”
As an ever-so-slightly overweight fellow, Mjöllmile didn’t look “tense” at
all. Still, it must’ve taken guts, introducing himself to a room full of
With our introductions now concluded, I jumped right into the topic at
hand.
“All right, Mollie, if you could go over how things are looking for us right
now…”
“Yes sir. If you’ll excuse me, then—”
Taking my cue, Mjöllmile got up from his seat next to Rigurd and went
over our preparations for the Founder’s Festival.
Two days from now, on the night before opening ceremonies, we would
be holding a citywide launch party. This would be open to everyone,
including not just event invitees but the merchants (and the adventurers
bodyguarding them) visiting town, with free food and drink for all. The news
had already gone out, of course, and I heard about farmers and the like from
nearby cities traveling over for it—the exact sort of tourism I wanted to
attract, so I wanted to be damn sure they had a great time.
In the reception hall, meanwhile, we’d hold a palatial banquet for the
visiting royalty and nobility. Everything served here would be a tandem
effort between Shuna and Yoshida the baker; they were debuting a lot of new
dishes, I knew, so I couldn’t wait. This would be a standing buffet-type thing,
since I wanted guests to enjoy smaller bits of as many different kinds of food
as we could offer.
Then the Founder’s Festival officially began. On the morning of the first
day, I would hold a speech. Yes, yet another speech, but I needed some kind
of event to officially proclaim that I was a demon lord, so this was kind of
unavoidable. I suggested skipping this, since everyone knew already, but my
advisers all just smiled and said no.
Right after that, we’d kick off the battle tournament at the coliseum. I,
however, would not be in attendance. This festival was meant to help VIPs
from other nations get to know Tempest, so I couldn’t just sit around
watching the preliminary rounds all day.
Instead, my itinerary included a seat at our newly refurbished and
extremely fancy-looking theater. Nobody’s told me what kind of performance
That was all for Mjöllmile’s rundown. Diablo, Hakuro, and Geld—who
weren’t around for all the lead-up work—listened intently to it all, no doubt
saddened that they couldn’t be a part of it. I should probably give each of
them a reward of some sort. Geld’s could wait until he was done with his
current job, but Diablo and Hakuro had wrapped up theirs with flying colors.
Making a mental note of that, I turned to my officials. “So far,
everything’s been going smoothly,” I said. “Have any of you run into any
issues?”
If nobody had, I was going to turn it over to Soei, but—
“Yes sir!”
That was Ramiris’s cheerful voice sounding out as she raised her hand.
Ramiris, huh? I’m sure it’s nothing serious, then.
“What’s up, Ramiris?”
“Well, um, I got a problem?”
“Yes? What is it?”
“Okay, well, you see, it’s about the bottom floors of the Dungeon…”
She fell silent, glancing at Veldora.
“Kwaaaah-ha-ha-ha! Yes, erm, it is nothing serious. You recall the forest
installed in Floor 95 of the labyrinth? Well, for some reason, it has started
growing its way up into higher floors, and it now covers everything up to
Floor 71!” Veldora said.
He sounded so casual about it, too. Floors 91 to 94 were thankfully sealed
off, so they apparently weren’t affected. But the rest of the levels were now
Now it was Treyni’s turn, and she suggested leaving Floors 71 through 80
(where the vegetation was still relatively sparse) to Zegion and Apito. “Those
two can summon their underlings,” she said, “so they should be able to
reclaim those floors in quick order. Plus…” She flashed a look at Ramiris. “I
think that Zegion would make a fine boss for Floor 80,” she said, smiling.
“He’s done a wonderful job protecting the treant homeland up to now.”
“I see…”
“That sounds like a splendid idea,” chimed in Veldora. “I would be happy
to train him up to a fighter worthy of making Floor 80 proud!”
Yeah, Zegion was definitely a lot stronger than one might guess.
Definitely stronger than a tempest serpent, or at least he was the last time I
saw him. But this is still Zegion we’re talking about—he’s just a bug the size
of a squirrel or something, you know? I’m not sure how much you could
“train up” something like that, but oh well. I already knew Veldora was a
Report. This is the effect of the naming. Since the subject, Kumara,
held a vast amount of magicule energy, more energy is being
consumed than…originally surmised.
I was tricked by this tiny fox pup in front of me, but… Yeah, it’s actually
one of the rarest, most high-level monsters out there. I, um, may have
dropped the ball there. Plus, the moment I uttered the name, Kumara started
growing fast—not in size, really, but in number of tails, which went from
......
C’mon, don’t play dumb with me! I can see through you well enough.
Thus, I decided to leave Floors 81 through 90 to the overjoyed,
scampering Kumara. It’s not like this zone would see a swell of adventurers
from day one; I bet Kumara solo would make a fine boss.
That wrapped up Ramiris’s and Veldora’s issues.
I was glad to see the rest of my staff was pretty excited about the
Dungeon, too. Its success was really important to me; I wanted to be sure its
operation started on the right track. I gave Kumara a pat on the head.
With all the reporting on the Founder’s Festival done, I wanted to listen to
Soei’s recent findings.
“All right, Soei, the stage is yours.”
“Yes sir…”
What he had for me was quite a surprise. It turned out that a Hero had
taken down the entire Orthrus Slave Market organization. Its exposure and
downfall had already led to severe consequences for certain nobility around
the world—including that Viscount Cazac guy, who was now in the custody
of the Blumund authorities.
But not long from now—a massive, intense party was about to kick off
and throw all my trivial worries to the wind.
“Don’t worry! I promise I’ll keep it nice and compact this time!”
“I’ve heard that one before. I don’t bother worrying much about the length
by this point.”
That’s how I kicked off this volume, and then when the deadline drew
closer…
My editor, Mr. I, was wholly unmoved. But my turn wasn’t over yet!
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